Monthly Archives: September 2013

Today, ESPN Insider writer Scott Kacsmar takes aim at the Green Bay Packers (Aaron Rodgers in particular) over what he believes to be Rodgers’ failures in the 4th quarter over his career.

He writes:

Trailing 34-30 with 3:47 remaining on Sunday, Aaron Rodgers had a chance to lead a game-winning touchdown drive to help the Green Bay Packers escape with a victory in Cincinnati. With the stage set for a classic finish after a wild game, this should have been a legacy-growing moment for the player many believe is the best quarterback in the NFL, right?

Not so fast. The Packers are just 5-24 (.172) in games when Rodgers had the ball in the fourth quarter, trailing by 1-8 points. Five comebacks in 29 tries? Tony Romo, considered by some to be a choker, led five comeback wins in the 2012 season alone. Among active starters, only Cam Newton (2-16) has a worse record than Rodgers.

He has numerous passing records, both a regular-season and Super Bowl MVP, but this is the one area on the résumé that continues to be a sore spot for Rodgers. Sunday was one of his worst finishes yet.

This time, while the drive was long in plays (13), it ended at the Cincinnati 20 after Rodgers’ pass was tipped on fourth-and-5. That was the third tipped ball of the drive, as the Packers’ offense ended the game with two interceptions, a fumble returned for the go-ahead score, and this turnover on downs.

These close-game failures have been the hush-hush hallmark of coach Mike McCarthy’s otherwise successful tenure as Packers head coach. While the blame should be distributed everywhere, why are we not looking at the quarterback more?

I’m going to trust that Kacsmar has his numbers correct. I know many have attributed two of the Packers close losses to Rodgers when it was Flynn that played all or the majority of the games against the Lions and Patriots in 2010, but I’ll give Kacsmar the benefit of the doubt here.

I take issue with anyone directly attributing a win to a quarterback in football, just like I scoff at the idea of pitcher wins and losses in baseball. These are team sports and teams win and lose ballgames. The pitcher and quarterback may influence the outcomes of these games more than other positions, but the whole idea of attributing these players wins and losses simplifies what is usually very complex.

Kacsmar seems to understand this is a team sport, and he address this later in the piece:

Of course, some of the 26 losses speak well for him. He has put Green Bay ahead seven times in the fourth quarter when trailing, only for the team to go on to lose the game. The defense is certainly deserving of blame for this.

Green Bay has allowed 20 game-winning drives since 2008, which is third-most in the league over that span. Last season, there was the Hail Mary to Seattle’s Golden Tate on that game’s final play. In Week 1 this year, Aaron Rodgers led the Packers to a 28-24 lead, only to watch Colin Kaepernick and the Niners score the game’s last 10 points for a San Francisco win.

While it’s been a team problem, all quarterbacks have close losses in which the defense failed them. The difference — in comparison to Rodgers — is that they always seem to have more wins, too.

I’ve watched every one of Rodgers games. I don’t think he’s perfect, but I do think he’s been as good or better than anyone else since he became a starter. In that timespan, I’ve never gotten the impression that Rodgers wasn’t clutch, but I was curious as to the circumstances in these close games that the Packers were losing.

Here is what I found out:

21 total losses in games decided by seven points or less

Game

Team

Score at the start of the 4th

Did the Packers tie or take the lead (Y/N/# of times)

Final Score

Final Offensive Possession (4th/OT)

1

Atlanta

10-17

Yes

24-27

TD

2

@Tennessee

10-16

Yes

16-19 OT

Punt

3

@Minnesota

24-21

No

27-28

Missed FG

4

Carolina

21-21

Yes (Twice)

31-35

Int.

5

Houston

7-13

Yes (Twice)

21-24

Punt

6

@Jacksonville

13-7

Yes

16-20

Int

7

@Chicago

17-10

No

17-20

Missed FG

2009:

Game

Team

Score at the start of the 4th

Did the Packers tie or take the lead (Y/N/# of times)

Final Score

Final Offensive Possession (4th/OT)

8

Cincinnati

21-28

No

24-31

False start

9

@Minnesota

14-28

No

23-30

FG

10

Pittsburgh

14-21

Yes (twice)

36-37

TD

11

@Arizona

24-38

Yes (twice)

45-51 OT

TD/Fumble

2010

Game

Team

Score at the start of the 4th

Did the Packers tie or take the lead (Y/N/# of times)

Final Score

Final Offensive Possession (4th/OT)

12

@Chicago

10-7

Yes

17-20

Fumble

13

@Washington

13-3

No

13-16 OT

Missed FG / INT

14

Miami

10-13

Yes (twice)

20-23 OT

TD / Punt

15

@Atlanta

10-10

Yes

17-20

TD

2011

Game

Team

Score at the start of the 4th

Did the Packers tie or take the lead (Y/N/# of times)

Final Score

Final Offensive Possession (4th/OT)

16

@Kansas City

7-9

No

14-19

TD

2012

Game

Team

Score at the start of the 4th

Did the Packers tie or take the lead in the 4th (Y/N/# of times)

Final Score

Final Offensive Possession (4th/OT)

17

@Seattle

6-7

Yes

14-12

Punt

18

@Indianapolis

21-19

Yes

27-30

Missed FG

19

@Minnesota

24-27

Yes (twice)

34-37

TD

2013

Game

Team

Score at the start of the 4th

Did the Packers tie or take the lead (Y/N/# of times)

Final Score

Final Offensive Possession (4th/OT)

20

@San Francisco

21-21

Y

28-34

Inc.

21

@Cincinnati

30-21

N

30-24

Inc

Here are two things that immediately jumped out at me:

1 – 66% of the losses included Packer scoring drives that resulted in a tie game or a Green Bay advantage.

and

2 – 57% of the Packers final possessions in the 4th quarter were scores or missed FGs.

Note: there were two instances in which the Packers final drive occurred with under five seconds on the clock. I instead used their previous possession)

On Sunday at Cincinnati, Rodgers had one of his worst games as a professional. It wasn’t a good look for him, throwing a costly interception late and finishing the game with two balls batted down.

But I don’t believe that the narrative should be that he’s un-clutch or worse, he’s costing his teams games when the score gets tight late. The evidence will actually show that more often than not he’s put his team in position to win the game.

In it he makes a particularly good case for killing the error and I’m definitely with him to a certain degree.

But I’m not here to talk about that. My ire today is for another prominent statistic for another prominent fuck-up in another prominent sport: the interception. I love football, but there isn’t anything more dumb to me about the sport than punishing a quarterback when a receiver fucks up.

I watch a majority of the games on Saturday and Sunday with my younger brother, a former quarterback and current coach. Over the years we’ve grown to loathe the idea of an interception more and more, because often times the situation isn’t cut and dry. Maybe the WR ran the wrong wrote and the ball sailed into the arms of a defender that wouldn’t have made a play on the ball otherwise. Maybe a RB or OT blows a cut block and a pass is batted into the air, landing right in a lineman’s lap.

Or maybe a WR simply doesn’t catch a perfect pass and the ball ends up in the hands of a defender.

That was a pass from Aaron Rodgers to Jermichael Finley. As you can see, it was placed about as perfectly as a ball can be: out in front of the receiver, eye level and on-time.

Finley bobbled the ball, it ended up into the arms of defensive back Eric Reid of the 49ers and the stat sheet will say that it was Rodgers that fucked up.

This happens all the time, and it drives me nuts.

How are we, in 2013, still penalizing quarterbacks for the fuck-ups of others. How do we not have a stat for this? Why aren’t drops that lead to picks a “thing”? Hell, why aren’t drops listed in (typical) stat-books at all?

Not all interceptions are created equal, but they’re going to shape the narrative all the same. It has to stop.

Twitter has completely changed the television viewing experience. If you’re on it, you know what I mean. Whenever a BIG TELEVISION EVENT happens, Twitter lights up and it’s impossible to avoid because everyone is writing about the same thing.*

*as I type this a dozen people on my Twitter list bitched about Ryan Seacrest at the NFL game.

Good luck avoiding spoilers. When a show airs you’re interested in watching but NOT THAT SECOND you have two choices:

1 – Just shut Twitter down for the night
2 – Live with the chance that someone is going to spill it because they forget not everyone is watching live

I’m an Option One kind of person. By now I know enough to go Twitter dark on such occasions.

But even if you happen to avoid spoilers and the HOLY FUCKING SHIT YOU GUYS DO YOU BELIEVE WHAT WE JUST SAW kind of tweets it doesn’t mean you’re completely shut-out on the discussion. The popular shows become part of INTERNET CULTURE. Don’t watch Mad Men or Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones? You’re going to feel like the loser in the classroom because that’s all THE INTERNET wants to discuss the following day.

Now. If you aren’t on the Internet regularly? If Twitter to you is just a stupid word and it’s just a bunch of people sharing what they’re eating? If you’ve never read a blog or a board? You could be forgiven for never hearing about Breaking Bad. The Red Wedding is meaningless.

But this blog post isn’t for you.

I don’t watch most shows live. It’s actually pretty rare. But I do generally keep up with the big ones within a day of them airing since becoming old enough to pay for my TV services.

There have been exceptions, though, and giving in and binging becomes the only possible option because INTERNET BUZZ is just too overwhelming. Sometimes I give in and I’m glad. Prior to the final season of Battlestar Gallactica the hype was huge and I got caught up before what ended up being one of my favorite series finales ever.

But other times? Other times I get Breaking Bad.

Breaking Bad, the final season, is happening right now. The finale is in a few weeks. It promises to be a BIG TELEVISION EVENT. Over the last month or so we’ve been getting articles on where the show ranks among the all-time greats, and if you’re to believe the critics and the rabid fanbase you’re going to see it right at the top of the list.

I gave it a shot, sort of, once before. Back in season two I fired up the pilot, fell asleep and forgot about it for three years.

It was only after the Internet Hype hit critical mass that I gave it another go. Whether I liked it or not, I would watch three seasons.

I did, I liked it…kinda. Not really.

A mark of a TV show I’m likely to love is based on some really basic criteria:

• Does it invoke emotion? Does it make me laugh? Does it piss me off? Does it shock me? Any kind of emotion is a good thing. Furthermore, am I emotionally invested in the characters or the story?

• Am I going to want to randomly re-watch an episode six months or six years from now?

• Does it have characters I can either identify with or root for?

• Is it memorable or is it forgettable?

Breaking Bad fit none of the above. I gave it three entire seasons, and what I got were awful characters, a glacial pace and forgettable (if not repeated) plot lines.

I didn’t give a shit about anything I was watching.

A character dies? Fuck it, I didn’t like them anyway. Something bad happens to Walt? He’s a shitty person so fuck him. It isn’t funny, it’s light on the BIG EVENTS, every episode rolls together because it’s closer to one 10 hour movie as opposed to a series of episodes with their own individual mini-stories.

I gave it three seasons. I peeked ahead to see if I was going to miss out on anything Earth shattering. Nope. Season five sounds like the exact same boring shit with the exact same boring and deplorable characters.

I gave up.

I’m a firm believer in there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure. Like what you like. No, scratch that. LOVE what you LOVE. Get totally invested in what you want, embrace it and make no apologies. If someone gives you shit? FUCK THEIR INSECURE ASS.

Breaking Bad isn’t for me. I don’t think it’s a bad show and I can see why others may love it (I guess) but it doesn’t hit any of the notes that make for great television according to my checklist.

Update:After the INTERNET HYPE got huge, I watched the final three episodes of Breaking Bad. I loved them all. They were brilliant and amazing and incredibly entertaining. Do I regret skipping season 4 and most of season five? HAHA NOPE.

Look: if anything in the first three seasons was anything close to the final three episodes, I would have kept going. There wasn’t.

Coming up with a list of my favorite TV shows wasn’t incredibly difficult. For one, I didn’t even really start watching a lot of TV until my mid to late 20s. There was the rare show that got my attention during college, but they were few and far between. It only took me a handful of minutes to come up with every show I’d watched enough of to have an opinion on.

These are shows I’ve watched over the years that I’ve watched enough to have an opinion, but lost me. Might have happened after a season, might have happened after three. But one way or another I gave up and I doubt I go back.

Some of those were tough to leave off. I grew up on Coach, Fresh Prince, Seinfeld, Cheers and MacGuyver. 24, House, Lost, NYPD Blue and Smallville were great for binge watching. The LA Complex, V, Jericho, Sleeper Cell and Lucky Louie should have gone on for a lot longer than they did. You really need to watch these shows if you missed ’em.

Seriously. THE LA COMPLEX. It’s insanely twisty and every episode has a cliff hanger. Watch it.

The NOT YET.

These shows may be worthy of rank at some point. They’re still going on and I love them but I need to see more:

To hell with every executive responsible for killing these shows before their time.

Everyone knows Firefly and Sports Night and Veronica Mars were great.

I’m here to beg you to see the critically slammed Studio 60 and the basically never watched Reaper.

Studio 60 has all the heart a TV show could ever hope to have. It will make you cheer, tear up, grin like a bastard and break down. No, it isn’t funny in the way it had to be. But it packed so much into so few episodes that there’s absolutely no wasted episodes. It also wraps up nicely.

As for Reaper? Reaper is a Kevin Smith creation way the hell ahead of its time. If it had been on any other network it’d be considered a comedy classic. Ray Wise and Tyler Labine steal ALL THE SCENES. You can finish the whole series in days and when you do you can feel free to thank me.

The TRACY MCGRADY DIVISION

15 – Ally McBeal
14 – Fringe
13 – The OC

These shows had peaks as good as anything I’ve ever watched. They also had massive lows. Ranking these shows was tough.

I obviously love The OC and have written a few thousand words explaining why. I could justify Fringe in my top five if I had too. It was the perfect sci-fi drama when it was on and it was as close to cinema on network TV as you’ll get. Ally McBeal? At its best it was hilarious with a lot of heart. At its worst it was cringe inducing and it really fell apart at the end.

But the highs carry these shows. When I think of these shows I think of the really great episodes and the memorable characters. I don’t think about the terrible final seasons of Fringe or Ally and I’ve blocked season 3 of The OC from my memory. IT DID NOT HAPPEN.

You all can keep your Breaking Bads and Mad Men and Sopranos. I like my TV fantastical. I want regular every day characters put in situations you won’t ever see in real life.

Supernatural is a show that’s simply hurt by its staggering amount of episodes. Do you realize that it just finished season eight? That they’re going to shoot ten? There will be over two hundred 45 minute Supernatural episodes by the time the show wraps up its run.

TWO FREAKING HUNDRED.

I could put together a full season of absolutely amazing Supernatural episodes that would rival the best shows ever put on TV. When it was great, it was the best thing that no one watched. If you’re looking for something special, check out the later half of season one and don’t stop until you finish season three. It’s an amazing run.

Then it fell off a cliff. There was the occasional really good episode but they got scarcer and scarcer and eventually the show went off the rails and I gave up. I’ve heard good things about season eight(!) but I’m skeptical.

But still, it was an amazing show when it was at its best.

Spartacus is incredible. Game of Thrones gets all the love for those that like their shows incredibly violent and incredibly naked, but Spartacus blows GoT away in both. The villains are better, the heroes more relatable and more human, the drama more entertaining. Game of Thrones is great, but when its bad it seems like its trying to move chess pieces around on a board. Spartacus doesn’t waste episodes like that. It’s a show that leaves your balls in your thought when it’s not showing them on-screen. Seriously, this is as progressive a show as we’ve seen, maybe ever. Lotta dick.

The Vampire Diaries are a joke to those that have never given it a shot. It gets swept up in the tween vampire wave (HEY TWILIGHT FUCK YOU) when in reality it’s a violent, mature, often funny show that doesn’t skimp on the HOLY SHIT moments. I like shows that leave your jaw on the ground. TVD has that in spades, whether it’s killing off main characters or bringing back ones you thought were long dead. It doesn’t mind screwing with its mythology and it’s got serious wit.

And eye candy. Lots and lots of eye candy.

Battlestar Galactica was The West Wing on a star ship. Pick a social issue and it tackled it. There were twists and cliff hangers in almost every episode. There were mysteries that lasted multiple seasons. The jaw dropping moments were common. I can’t get anyone I know to watch it because ROBOTS IN SPACE but that’s their fucking loss.

The FUNNIEST TV SHOW EVER

4 – Archer

“I don’t like cartoons.”

Do you know how many times I’ve heard that? THREE. It happened all three times I tried to get my friends to watch the funniest thing on TV going right now.

You cannot watch Archer and not laugh. It is not possible. I’m leaving this in the hands of the GIF GODS. (via UPROXX)

THAT ISN’T EVEN FROM A FULL SEASON (DUH) AND THERE ARE FOUR OF THEM AND SEASON FIVE STARTS SOON SO YOU CAN TOTALLY CATCH UP.

The JOSS WHEDON DIVISION

3 – Angel
2 – Buffy The Vampire Slayer

These two shows embody everything I love about TV. That list of requirements above? They check off every one:

• The proverbial BIG THINGS happen
• They’re witty with smart dialogue (it’s Joss Whedon, so of course)
• They hit every social issue out there
• You can’t help but become completely invested in the characters
• You will lose your shit when those characters die

Yea, your favorite character? DEAD AS A DOORNAIL. And I loved the shows for it.

There were always consequences in Angel and Buffy. Nothing ever went unpunished, and no one was ever happy for long. Whedon was notorious for making his audience love a character and when things were looking up, after seasons of struggles and happiness was in sight, he’d pull the rug out from underneath the viewer.

And those moments were devastating. Even on repeat viewings I don’t believe what I’m seeing.

Now granted, things weren’t always terrible for our heroes. Both shows, Buffy in particular, were really really funny. It was a show for smart people who like quick dialogue. Angel was darker and almost noir and less optimistic. Not surprisingly, the finale (which was perfect) was a depressing hour of TV. R.I.P., world.

Both shows are essentially perfect. Smart, funny, sexy, mind-blowing, heart warming and heart wrenching. You’ll scream and laugh and be pissed off and sad and confused. If you’re looking for two shows to bring about an emotional response, it’s Whedon’s two masterpieces. There isn’t much else you could ask for in television or movies or books or music…any media. This is almost as good as it gets.

The Best. Ever.

No way I’m justifying this selection in a couple paragraphs and I’ll be writing more down the line.